§ Mr. CURRIEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether a trader who, balancing his books annually at 31st December, had incurred a loss during the year to 31st December, 1914 (the Excess Profits Duty of that year being 50 per cent.) of £1,000 and only recovered that loss during the current year to 31st December, 1917 (the Excess Profits Duty being 80 per cent.) would have been entitled, according to the provisions of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, Section 38 (3), to set the whole of the loss of the first 1486W year against the loss of the current year, and if the result of Section 45 (2) of the Finance Act of 1916 is to entitle the Revenue to set the duty of the first period, namely, £500, against the duty of the second period, namely, £800, with the result that, although the trader has stood out of his loss for three years and has not done more in the meantime than recover his loss, he is liable to pay £300 of Excess Profits Duty, and whether, if in the like periods a gain of £1,000 has been made in the earlier year and a loss of £800 be made in the later period, leaving a net gain of £200, the trader will be liable to any Excess Profits Duty by reason of his setting the duty on the profit of the earlier year against the duty on the profit of the later year?
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThe set-off provided by Section 38 (3) of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, is a set-off of duty and the only modification introduced in this connection by the Finance Act, 1916, was consequential upon the increase in the rate of duty which that Act imposed. In the circumstances specified in the last part of the question the duty paid would be recoverable. For the rest, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him on the 27th June.